The Inventor's Mind

Avitae

Have you heard of Avitae caffeinated water?  One of my good friends is in a position similar to mine at their offices here in Columbus and he has turned me into a believer.  The concept behind the product is simple everyone needs water.  The majority of people in the workforce drink coffee to stay awake throughout the day, but the downside to coffee is that it isn’t a good substance for our bodies to digest.  Combine coffee with large amounts of sugar and cream and it becomes harmful for us, while Avitae is water it also contains natural caffeine for alertness and awakeness, just like coffee.  Besides that it is a cool and innovative product it has really nice design, with a slightly different form than usual bottles and eye grabbing graphics.  These factors combine to create the impulse when you pass it in whole foods that says “I need that”.  Check it out, its in various stores around the country and it is truly a unique product.

-Nile

One of the many perks of being an intern/ marketing assistant for Trident Design is my ride.  The job comes with coffee in the mornings, the occasional business lunch out, and most importantly my Xootr designed by Lunar Design.  It’s a streamlined scooter that allows me to cruise around the short north of Columbus in style and rather quickly at that.

The design of it is real sleek; it plays on the collapsible scooter theme that was all the rave a few years ago with the razor scooters, etc.  But it does so in a much higher quality fashion.  The base on which you stand is wide with nice grip and a wood surface it has an upgraded hand brake system which is far superior to the foot brake that was common place on scooters in past years.  One of the highlights of the product is its collapsibility which is also one of the biggest pit falls of this product.  The mechanism that allows you to collapse the scooter isn’t very user friendly, at best.  This isn’t enough to deter me from riding it though.  All in all it is a great product, with nice design, and it will definitely add value to your everyday life.

-Nile

This morning, while walking on the beach in St. Croix with my wife and son, I came across a gentleman, Bruno, making a cool sand castle on the beach in from of his restaurant, Beachside Café, on the beach just outside of Frederiksted, as he does each day they are open. His castle was super cool and his style in making it was cool, too. He made the entire castle using a spade shovel, making quick, confident cuts with the shovel. He had first made a large pile of sand, and then starting cutting it away to reveal the castle, much like a stone sculptor. He started with the overall shape, and then began adding in details with the corner of the edge. He added windows, stairs, towers, and walls, each with a single, quick stroke. I stood and watched him for a while, admiring his work, before I approached him, complimented him, and asked him what his secret was. He replied that there was no secret really, just make each cut with confidence and understand that there are no mistakes. You can’t have final plan in mind, just work with it as it unfolds and don’t try to rework what you’ve already done. You’ll just mess it up. I told him that in fact, I thought his secret was one of the best I’d ever heard.

When I asked him for his secret, he immediately assumed I was looking for his “recipe”, and in since he made it different each day, he didn’t think he had anything to offer. What he did say, though, was much more useful than any series of steps. He gave me the mindset he uses. He gave me a glimpse of his perspective in approaching the project each day. A perspective gained from making hundreds of sand castles. If he had just told me what the actions were, the steps, to creating a sand castle, I would have walked away with a recipe for one castle, and probably not be able to reproduce it well, because I wouldn’t remember all the details. Instead, I feel like I could go out and make an awesome sand castle myself, with any number of possible looks, by applying his mindset of confident strokes, no mistakes, and no master plan, instead a master strategy. Combined with the technique I observed: sculpt by removing material, start big and then add detail, use single strokes, I have the real secret for making awesome sand castles.

Now, let’s take a moment to look at a few of the ways this applies to almost any other activity in life, including, of course, inventing. First, the “secret” to doing something with awesome results is rarely contained within the mere steps to get to the result. We look at people of great accomplishment and we like to ask, “how did they do that?”, “what were the steps they took to get there?”, “what do they know that I don’t know?”. But armed with the answers to these questions, gained by reading accounts of other people’s successes in biographies and magazines, never leads by itself to success. I recently read a detailed history of George Westinghouse during the advent of the electric lighting revolution. Westinghouse invented the pneumatic train brake in his early twenties and started a major corporation to produce them, prior to electrifying the United States. Knowing the steps he took doesn’t get me any closer to being able to make that kind of achievement!

The “secret” to awesome results, of course, is in how you view the world. The perspective that allows someone to see around a corner that no one else can, allows you to see opportunties that no one else can. It is also a certain perspective on the world that allows you to take action on the opportunties you see; a perspective that you can, through will and dedication, cause your vision to come to pass. It is a perspective as well, which allows you to see the correct approach to a task in order to achieve the best results. If someone can share this with you rather than just a series of steps, they are giving you something much more powerful and lasting. It’s the old “give a man a fish” story. It is for this reason I called my eBook “Inventor’s Mind”. Clearly, it is helpful to break things up into steps so information can be logically organized, but what is really important isn’t the actual steps, it is the mindset in approaching each one of them.

The last point I want to make, is that builidng sand castles, is of course, a beautiful metaphor for building our visions, whether an invention, a restaurant, or an insurance brokerage. They are all our dreams, and will ultimatley be washed away by time. What isn’t improtant is that they never wash away, but rather that we have the insight to reproduce a fresh one each time an old one’s time has come. And to get predictably awesome results by having the secret rather than the steps. Also, the specific secrets and techniques that Bruce gave to me apply to almost every endeavor: confident actions, no mistakes, a strategy rather than a plan, sculpt by removing, start big and then add detail, and short precise strokes.

I’m going to the beach now to play in the sand!

-Chris

Apparently all the heat that’s coming out of Trident Design, LLC is having an effect on Columbus, Ohio, because it’s a beautiful sixty degrees right now. Everyone is working hard, hustling and bustling to make things happen. It’s important to remember that in times like these a break can be the best thing for us. A little R&R never hurt anyone, but it’s easy to fall into the mindset that R&R equals laziness, which just isn’t true. It’s important to reward yourself for all of your hard work, whether it’s a nice dinner out on the town with some friends, a movie night at home, or an island getaway. Chris, one of the hardest workers I know, who is quite possibly dealing with the busiest part of his life, is leaving to take eleven days off in St. Croix with his wife and son. Isn’t it nice. There’s no need to fear, the army will thrive without its commander in chief, but the blogs might be a little dry without all the excitement he brings to the table.

-Nile

If Trident Design, LLC were an army, they would be fighting the war against mediocre design, inferior products, and bad branding.  A strong army we would be; Chris would be the general overseeing the whole operation and making sure that everything goes according to plan, strategizing if you will.  The design team would double as the artillery taking all of the long shots, deciding what areas to attack, and reaping all of the credit behind the scenes.  The salesmen are the marines, the first to battle fighting for their lives, totally dependent on the next sale (or kill).  And of course the office manager would have to be the combat nurse who’s there to patch up everyone’s wounds and who gets you prepared to go back into the storm.

This brings me to the point. Three of our sharpest shooters here at Trident are Jessica Moreland, Joel Beebe, and Chris Trunek.  Jessica is the “go to girl”, design manager, plotting the coordinates and telling her men where to go and when to move.  The design process is one more of delegation as opposed to a dictatorship, and you can’t really tell a designer what to do. Instead you have to point them in the direction and inspire them to get on the same page.  Jessica does this well.  Then there’s Joel, the newest member of the team, very reliable and clever.  This brings us to Trunek, the mercenary working remotely from Utah.  He’s the mechanical brain brought in to suppress the problem and bring new angles to the table.  The three of them armed with CAD software, streamlined keyboards and mice, and proper direction have brought Trident Design to where it is today.  We are all part of the “one brain” mentality, we combine all of our talents to create a unified and dignified product, that represents itself well and also represents what we stand for at Trident.  Everyone brings something different and important to the table, but by combining our efforts we create something that is efficient in design and in function.

-Nile

How do you become a successful inventor? I’m not really sure. It’s definitely an extremely difficult question to answer. There are many variations, many different paths and they don’t all lead to success. In fact, most don’t lead you anywhere or take you on the scenic route. I tend to feel that unless you are extremely gifted or just really lucky you’re usually walking on the scenic route. It’s all part of the process, we all try to walk the line but it always seems easier to stray and only once you’ve strayed too far do you realize you’re going in the wrong direction. If you have the right attitude and the will to push on through you will eventually reach your destination. If you asked Chris this question he would tell you that “there are so many ways to approach success but the most solid and consistent approach is to stay focused and be genuine in your actions. Good marketing is key, but if you provide genuinely good content you will receive long term success.”

Chris has been asked to participate in an interview that will take place on the launch Hour, a weekly radio show for innovators, product developers & entrepreneurs. Hopefully the questions won’t be so deep and will have somewhat more of a straightforward answer; otherwise Chris will probably be sweating it out.   the launch hour podcast will air 2/24/2011.  To be honest Chris is an innovator, product developer, and entrepreneur so I’m sure he will be fine. As well as participating in the radio show/podcast Chris will be offering his knowledge in depth in monthly classes starting in April. Chris has decided to give back to the invention community with a series of informative classes using real world examples from his life and experiences. The intention is to prepare up and coming inventors for the realities of the business as well as encourage them to push as hard as they can.

-Nile

The last few days as I have been at CES, I have been hanging around a lot with my good friend Thomas Meyer of Sonos, my favorite technology company. I don’t say that lightly. They are truly my favorite. Thomas is maybe the most amazing connector I have ever met. He appears to love nothing more than introducing people who he thinks might like to know each other. And in the consumer electronics world, he knows seemingly everyone. He is like a guardian social angel for a large contingent of people at every CES, making sure everyone is having a good time, meeting good people, and getting into whatever parties they want to. I typically see him once a year, at CES, but I consider him a great friend.

As I hang out with Thomas, I meet lots of the Sonos people. Everyone I have met there projects a similar positive, passionate, obviously skillful vibe. Everyone of them is open and interested and interesting. They are all youthful (in attitude if not in years) and excited. Seeing this consistency made me realize how important choosing team members is to creating a company culture. You can intentionally try to create a culture, but picking the people who create the kind of culture you want is the only way to ensure that you’ll have what you want over time. And nothing is more important as the culture of the company, both in insuring that a company is going to be effective at accomplishing its goals and in making it a place where you want to spend your days.